The radio industry launched a digital audio identifier that streamlines access to 14.7 million monthly listeners across ARN, Nine Audio, Nova Entertainment and Southern Cross Austereo.
CRA Audio ID allows advertisers and media buyers to buy digital inventory across all of Australia’s radio networks, while de-duplicating reach and eliminating wastage.
The project, first announced at the CRA’s HEARD conference earlier this year and has taken 10 months to produce.
Heralded by a media buyer as an efficiency gain that sets up audio for future success, CRA Audio ID enables marketers to plan, buy and optimise digital audio campaigns across live streaming radio and podcasting in one simplified workflow through Google’s Display & Video 360 demand side platform (DSP).
CRA chief executive Lizzie Young told B&T that CRA Audio ID provides advertisers with much greater scale than the addressable audience of Spotify, and that the industry plans to evolve it with more DSP and data enrichment partners.
“Sometimes what happens is people think that they can access Australian listeners through Spotify, but they actually can’t. We have a significant audience that is actually much larger than the addressable audience of Spotify but yet we take a smaller portion of the programmatic advertising market,” she said.
“The magic of the ID is that it enables the cross network reach and frequency deduplication, planning and buying. It enables a much more efficient and effective buy.
“We’re in conversations with other DSPs about the integration, and over time it will be possible for us to bring in data enrichment partners and first party data. There is a potential in the future for hybrid trading across digital and analogue if that’s what the market tells us they would like.”
Getting all of the audio publishers into line to produce a cross-network advertising solution is no mean feat, but is also born out of necessity.
In the 2025 fiscal year, investment in audio grew by 3.1 per cent, with radio flat and digital growing by 22 per cent, as more Australian advertising money siphons into global digital platforms and retail media. In September, audio ad spend slumped by 15.2 per cent year-on-year against a market drop of 10.4 per cent.
ARN and Southern Cross Austero have both made hundreds of roles redundant in rounds of cost cutting due to the challenging market.
Taking on platforms
Nova Entertainment chief commercial officer Nicole Bence told B&T that collaborating on this project was a “no brainer” and that it would provide advertisers with “a much better, higher quality way to manage reach and frequency across all the networks”.
“We want to be as easy and as effective as we can for advertisers to be able to access our inventory so that they feel confident and positive about spending in digital audio,” she said.
“The other side of it is, you know, we know we’re up against scale from the global platforms beyond audio. It’s not just that we’re competing for audio dollars, we need to be able to move with the speed and agility that allows us to compete with the same sort of digital workflows that the digital platforms offer advertisers.
“Until you are able to talk about that aggregated scale in a really easy way, you’re missing an opportunity. Let’s be really clear about the fact that we can offer 14.7 million monthly listeners, and we can do it in a way that allows you to really understand the duplication and manage frequency better.”
Bence said the next step is to make the CRA Audio ID more accessible to multiple DSPs and then make targeting across demographics and segments much easier.
Laying down foundations
Omnicom’s chief media implementation officer Adam Coulter has been working with the CRA on what media planners and buyers require from a unified ID solution.
He supports any industry initiative that simplifies access and removes friction in delivering audiences at scale.
“Digital audio operates within a highly complex ecosystem—spanning web, apps, mobile, smart speakers, livestreams, and podcasts. In an increasingly competitive media landscape, if you bring complexity to agencies & clients, you will lose out on budgets,” Coulter told B&T.
“It’s about making digital audio easy to buy and easy to measure, so it can truly compete for media budgets at the top table.”
Coulter believes the main benefits to advertisers are easier media planning by having audiences powered by a consistent taxonomy across all four networks, and implementational efficiencies.
“Using a consistent identifier delivered in a standardised way to DSPs will allow our programmatic traders to maximise reach and minimise wastage,” he said.
“Longer term is where it gets exciting. Once digital audio can consistently prove its ability to deliver at scale, agencies and clients will be far more engaged in exploring the media mix and uncovering what additional gains we can deliver through increased investment for client outcomes.”
Does this mean more investment pouring into audio? In the short-term, probably not. Coulter points out that current market conditions mean the buy-side remains “cautious”.
“The initial investment will likely come through test-and-learn budgets that might not come at the speed and size [the audio networks] would all like,” he added. “However, if CRA delivers audience scale, continues to evolve its product, and actively incorporates feedback from agencies and clients, these businesses are well-positioned for long-term success.”
In the next evolution of CRA Audio ID, Coulter said he would like to see integration into agency planning tools and advancing data interoperability.
“The ability to reach 15 million Australians is incredible, but the real value comes when we can understand those audiences deeply and use that insight to plan holistically within OMG’s marketing orchestration platform, Omni. The second area is about enablement of client/agency first-party data,” he said.
“In the future, being able to either activate those audiences across the CRA network or extract insights to inform innovative strategies will be table stakes. Emerging AI protocols will make this kind of discovery and insight-sharing a reality, and CRA and its network members are in a fantastic position to lean in now and lead the way in that space, given the scale and unique.”
Young said the CRA will now go to advertisers and agencies to educate the market about CRA Audio ID and the advertising opportunity it offers. Further developments, including additional DSP and data partnerships, are expected to be presented at the HEARD 2026 conference.
